Two great things that go great together: books and cities. The art (architecture?) is really appealing, but I also like the way it makes me think about the connections between cities and books—how you don’t get books until you have cities, and how cities have a powerful influence on the books that come out of them.

I’ll admit that I attended one TINY textbook fire as a teenager. It was somebody’s math book, and we just stuck it in a park barbecue and then melted some cups over it, nothing particularly Fahrenheit 451. But there are better ways to dispose of textbooks that you hate, or just don’t need anymore, but for whatever reason can’t sell back. Chinese artist Liu Wei, for instance, does it by making spectacular carved-book cityscapes.

zerode

is an over-caffeinated and under-employed grad school dropout, aspiring leftwing intellectual and cultural studies academic, cinéaste, and former poet. Raised in San Francisco on classic film, radical politics, burritos and soul music, then set loose upon the world. He spends his time in coffee shops with his laptop and headphones, caffeinating and trying to construct a post-whatever life.